Scholastic Scrimmage may need adjustment

TOWN SQUARE

April 18, 2012|Bill White

"Good evening. I'm your host of PBS 39's 'Scholastic Scrimmage,' where high school scholars from all over the Lehigh Valley match wits. Our competitors today are from Southern Northwestern and Louis E. Dieruff high schools. Is everyone ready? Let's begin with an easy tossup …

"Trenton is the capital of which state?" Bzzz. "Southern?"

"Europe."

"Incorrect, and that's not a state. Dieruff?"

"Fresno?"

"The correct answer is New Jersey. It's just to the east of the Delaware River."

"The what?"

"Delaware River. If you walk from here to Easton, keep going and find yourself getting wet, that will be the Delaware."

Southern's captain said, "Excuse me, but we don't have any classes about rivers."

"Of course not, but you should know where New Jersey is. Let's try a science tossup. Give me one example of a clean, sustainable source of energy." Bzzz. "Southern."

"Red Bull."

"No. Dieruff?"

"Grape juice. That makes a terrible stain."

"Not stainable. Sustainable. Among the acceptable answers would have been nuclear power, wind or solar. What are they teaching you people in school?"

"We drill every day on how to take standardized tests. Ask us about strategies on when to guess."

"I will not. I think you children need to have a broad vision of your place in this state, this country and this world, not just the ability to take standardized tests. Let's move on to English. What is an ellipsis?"

"A what?"

"An ellipsis. Come on, you've seen those." Bzzz. "Southern."

"That's the one where Bella has to choose between Edward the vampire and Jacob the werewolf."

"What are you talking about?"

"Twilight: Ellipsis."

"That's Eclipse, not Ellipsis! Dieruff?"

"I like werewolves."

"Yes, you do. An ellipsis is a mark of punctuation indicating that some material has been dropped from the sentence or the paragraph. We'll be right back after this word about public television."

The host beckoned for the teams' coaches. "This is going to be a long season if your teams can't answer any questions."

"Don't blame us. With the state budget cuts and school districts laying teachers off, they're eliminating almost everything except classes that will help with standardized test results. Team-teaching, the arts, social studies, all gone or cut way back. We're concentrating on PSSAs so the state doesn't come down on us."

"Well, I don't think we've ever had a match where both teams finished with zero."

"Do you have any 'Hunger Games' questions?"

"Absolutely not. We've already been dumbing this down, but I won't resort to faddish entertainment."

The coaches shrugged, and the host returned to her seat.

"OK, teams, we'll resume with another tossup. Name one of the three branches of the federal government." Bzzz. "Southern."

"Pussy willow."

"That … would be incredibly incorrect. Dieruff, I can't wait for this."

"I'm a Dieruff administrator, and I wanted to protest what you're doing to the public perception of our school with this negativism."

"Your students think Trenton is the capital of Fresno!"

"I think it would be best if I'm permitted to review the questions first, just to make sure they're appropriate."

"Get off my set. Students, let's try a math tossup. I know you spend a lot of time on this. What is the square root of 64 multiplied by the square root of 49?" Bzzz. "Dieruff, good to see you ringing in first."

"Do you want to see me do a back flip?"

"No. Southern?"

"I can do a cartwheel."

"The answer is 56. We're down to our last question. Let's see." She began riffling through papers. "Too difficult … Ha, forget it … Yeah, fat chance." She sighed. "OK, I give up. The heroine of 'Hunger Games' is …" Bzzz. "Dieruff."